But now? This is a guy whose longtime employer, the Red Sox, thought he wasn't even trying to play at times this season — including a few painful moments when he was in the batter's box against the Yankees.

He did it, the Sox suspected, so they would not pick up his $20 million club option for 2009, allowing him to be a free agent. Boston traded him to Los Angeles, the Dodgers said they would decline the action and Ramirez proceeded to play out of his mind.

In the current economic environment, how many executives are comfortable with Manny Ramirez as the face of the franchise? With millions of Americans out of work, and many millions more worried about being out of work, do teams really want to reward Manny Ramirez with one of the biggest annual salaries in the history of the sport? When many of your customers are hanging on to their jobs, do you really want a superstar who seems to take his job for granted?

We still don't know how many teams really want Manny to be Manny for them — at agent Scott Boras's price tag. It is nice to think that reality will hit Ramirez, even if it's just a tiny little does of reality. It would seem like justice if he only got two years and $40 million, the value of the two club options that caused all his unhappiness last season.

But Boras almost always wins, and the odds are that he'll win again. This time, though, there are some unusual obstacles in his way.

Signing Ramirez was always going to be a significant risk, even though he is one of the greatest hitters ever. He turns 37 next May. He has always been a comically indifferent fielder and base runner. And he caused so much misery for the Red Sox this past season that the Red Sox — the dynasty-in-the-making, free-spending, defending champion Red Sox — were desperate to unload him.

Scott "Once I explained the economic parameters, I received strong interest from 47 teams" Boras is not going to want any one- or two-year deals. Ramirez hired Boras with the idea that he could do better than those two $20 million-a-year club options. As you read this, Boras is surely showing a general manager a chart indicating that if Babe Ruth had been thinner, he would have been an MVP candidate into his early 60s, and since Manny is a thinner right-handed Ruth, he easily can play another 25 years.

Boston RedSox News News » In this market, it's hard to put a value on Manny 2008-12-15
In this market, it's hard to put a value on Manny 2008-12-15
The question has been asked so many times, it ought to be on the man's Hall of Fame plaque. MANUEL ARISTIDES RAMIREZ Was he worth it? For so many years, the answer was "Absolutely." Teams put up with Manny Ramirez's silliness because there was an offensive genius lurking inside the child. MLB Hot Stove